Shannon Clarke, Final Year Project

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Research Phase

Today Ian and Hugh talked to my group. I suppose because I have hit the wall when it came to the research phase it was now time to start the design phase. There wasn’t much for me to discuss with them on Friday because we all know the process and what I need to be doing now. I need to start sketching character designs, preparing my story, storyboarding, learning the software I am going to use and the background sketches.

Today in and Hugh talked to my group. I suppose because I have hit the wall when it came to the research phase it was now time to start the design phase. There wasn’t much for me to discuss with them on Friday because we all know the process and what I need to be doing now.

His work is absolutely stunning. Most of his work is done within the time frame of 30mins, I think this is a challenge he has set himself to do. Either way the work he has created within this time frame is amazing. I think he’s a painter but his style is inspiring. Instead of looking at his characters I am focussing on his backgrounds. The reason I chose not to look at the characters is because through all my research I have decided myself that character’s would be more or less vector characters and the backgrounds will carry more detail. Detail like this artist work is what I’d love to create. There is so many various way which he has done pieces but its still clear that all work is by him. I love everything about his illustrations including the colours, textures and brush strokes and the way in which it was painted. His forrest illustration with the monkey on top of the rock is stunning, although he is a painter it does however look like it was done digitally and the opacity has been dropped for so aspects. Overall his work is just something I really admire and the standard he set it very very high.

This is actually a film, but I absolutely love the style. Theres something really quirky and unique about how this film looked that I had to blog about it. I love everything about it. The settings are so quirky, the funny sharp angles they worked so well with this really quirky story. The lighting in all the scenes is strange but really sets the mood of it. Take the scene where the boy is holding a bag and is surrounded by tall buildings, this is his first day of school and bad things happen here. The cool tones set this mood. The characters them selves I love however I am not even sure what it is that I like, perhaps its the over sized heads that they have but then again this is something Disney have been doing. It might actually be that the characters although carrying a large head still carry realistic facial features as opposed to Disney characters. Either way I love the complete unique and quirky style of this film. The route of quirky style most defiantly appeals to me.

Because I still don’t have the tablet (I ordered the nexus 7 this week so ill have it soon 🙂 ) I cannot actually test this app out for myself. However through the supplied visuals I found on the Creativebloq website I can discuss what I like and dislike about the app. There is also a video for the app which gives a great insight into what looks like a wonderful app.

This app is not for children however there is aspects as seen in the video that I could bring to my own project.

Illustration: It is beautiful illustration with very story visuals. I like how it sticks to a set colour palette which brings the whole piece together. The illustrations themselves are so unique. They are in 2D however the smart use of angles and the use of layers gives each scene some depth. The lighting within the images is also been well done for example the scene with the character walking in between the buildings and the shadows that are cast on the ground are very very well done.

The main thing about this app is the audio, interactivity and animation.
The app is all about the sounds. With every little tap the user does a sound effect is heard, from the sound of a low pitched horn to the sounds of a snare drum. In some scenes the more the user taps the more sounds are added to give a song depth. I think this is a brilliant idea which was carried out in a unique and wonderful way.

The interactivity is a huge part of the app. This can he seen in the video. The title screen ( nice font that suits the app) the user can tap letters which disappear beautifully whilst also playing a little scale as each letter is tapped the scale goes up. With lots of things to tap and see the user is engaged from the get go. Take the building scene again, the user taps some of the windows thus turning on the lights and sounds play…as the user touches more they begin to flash on and off with the beat of the music. This is a wonderful looking app that I wish I could download and test first hand.

Animation is a large part of telling the story in this app as well as engaging the user. One really nice feature seen in the video is a scene of a house next to a lake (image above) when the user turns the tablet upside down the reflections change to look like monsters moving and opening their mouths. I’d love to know how this was done. The scene with the red foreground, when the user taps on the red part yellow eyes appear which blink. This is such a quirky app with some very random animations in it.

I love this scene which you can see in the video, where the character is walking through the water. The animation is exceptional. Its evident what is on each layer. The background -the sky and hills this is moving at a slow pace. The theres the trees and the house, they are also moving again very slow but not at the same pace as the sky. Then we have the walking character, this is its own layer this is the fastest item on this scene. Even the foreground is animated. This scene is so well done and I love how it was done. There is even interactivity on this scene where the user taps the water and sounds play.

Menu: Within this app there isn’t really a menu. There are two options throughout the app which you can click. To the upper right of the screen is a question mark symbol when this is clicked it will open up the instructions on what to do. How this is done is nice if I do decide to put a game within my app. To the upper left is a house icon, this brings you back to the home screen.

Next and previous: because this is more so a game app there is no next a previous, the child simply completes the task then the screen changes to the next task at hand.

Font:

Varies in colour and size both working very well. The font used is clear and concise. The use in various colours makes the app visually appealing.

Illustration:

Theres nothing spectacular about how this app looks. I do like the owl character at the bottom but I feel that it would go un noticed on the laptop screen. It does have nice aspects but its not visually strong to me.

Animation:

Like an app I used before this has little butterflies that flutter around the screen which is cute and nice. There is also animated what look like little dandelion’s floating around which enter and slowly fade. The owl also opens and closes its beak as it ’talks’ as well as lifting one wing from time to time and jumping back and forth. These little aspects are nice.

Interactivity:

Theres not much to this app at all, it is essentially clicking and thats it.

Audio:

Some sound effects when you click on words like start, again pretty simple stuff. The background music is a loop of the nursery rhyme 1,2,3,4,5…There is a voice over that does read the numbers out as the child clicks the items. This is very good.

Menu: Simple menu that has all the stuff you need. Mute sound, mute the voice and reset the game. The option to reset the game is a good option to have.

Instructions: Instructions on what to do are shown with the use of a pointing finger, just like your mouse curser pointing at what to tap. This method works well, from previous examples the use of showing instructions throughout is very useful and helps the child find hidden gems.

Interactivity

Plenty of engaging interactivity within this app. You can make Olaf go down the slide which then he bumps into the tree at the end and snow falls on him (funny for a child). The child can play music by tapping the icicles. They can have a snowball fight where the child has to try flick snowballs at Olaf. They can also try run from the snow monster and his giant snowballs. This is a highly entertaining app with lots of little mini games within.

Illustration

Graphics are very similar to the film, 3D colours etc. Although I look and feel of 3D animation I dont really have anything to say about this app visually. Theres some nice effects when the child taps on things or collects a snowflake – big burst of colour.

Animation

The app has a nice amount of animation, it begins with an introduction animated clip. When the child makes him go down the slide this is actually an animation that begins to play once the child taps the top of the slide. When the child ‘collects’ the diamond by tapping on it again an animation plays where Olaf reaches up and says something, the diamond lets out a huge burst of colour then disappears.

Audio

Very good audio overall from the background sounds to the voice of the character and the sound effects. The background music is subtle but effective. I think its cute when the child plays music Olaf begins singing “mi mi mi mi mi” and “you made music”. The sounds effects are of high quality.